To Want
by Hopeblossom
Summary: Intimacy between individuals is never stagnant, but the changes are often subtle, in both past and present. Hungary/Belarus.


They sit in the bath together, occupying opposite ends; they are limb to limb. The water is cooling and undisturbed. Outside the window the sun is languorous and warm, leaving a lingering, contented haze which has been common in these spring time afternoons as of late, and which leaks into the bathroom. Both women are basking in this atmosphere, each of them a queen in their own right.

At one end lies Natalya Arlovskaya. One of her arm hangs at the side of the tub. Her hair is darkened when wet, and her long legs invade the opposite side of the bath. Her skin is marble; the veins beneath are the melancholic blue and purple hues of the aurora borealis. She has sharp features carved from stone, and her eyes can only be compared to the enigmatic depths of the unexplored seas. These eyes are open and awake. Natalya is looking at her companion unfalteringly.

At the other end there is Erzsébet Héderváry, who is nestled beside the other's feet without complaint. She sports a warm complexion and soft features; she has lower cheekbones that result in rounded, apple cheeks. She has wide hips, once praised for the suggestion of fertility, and a sweet button nose. She had been singing minutes ago, but now is engaged in a restful silence, head hung back and her eyes delicately closed. Her hand feels for Natalya and finds her leg, and she rubs to and fro up and down her slender calf. The gesture is light and slow, mirroring the aura of the day.

"People say you still have romantic feelings for Austria," Natalya remarks. The contempt in her voice is low and subtle. An ex-husband... It is a threatening concept, and an ugly one.

She can see it clearly in her mind. If she views this scene from above, she can replace herself in the bath with that man. Erzśebet's hands skim over the thistles of hair on his legs. She smiles to him tenderly, and he smiles slightly back, eyes squinted because he is without his glasses. When they get out of the bath, she dries him with a towel without being asked, and he does not only accept this, but expects this. She is not serving him; she is tending to him, looking after him, for he is the weaker fraction and she has always been the stronger, despite the royal blood and upbringing and official powers of the squinting, slender gentleman. He needed her, and Erzśebet was happy to provide.

Natalya's eyes are now caught on a towel on the rack. Her eyes are distant; she is stood in a bathroom but it is one shared between husband and wife, and she is an invisible stranger.

In a languid manner, Erzśebet opens her eyes and looks to Natalya. She shifts slightly in the bath, smiling carelessly, and waves her hand to catch the Belarusian's attention.

"Not true," she replies simply. "Why would I be with you if I still liked him?"

"You did love him?"

"It was complicated." Erzśebet presses the backs of two fingers to her lips and looks away briefly, but then she looks back. Her smile is casual, yet also fond. "I found him bossy and a little controlling, and I wanted to defy him because of it. But we got on well too, and I found him cute. He's a pretty guy. I'm proud of the married life we had, y'know, 'cause it could have been much worse." She sighs nostalgically as her smile grows, and she looks to Natalya again. "You don't still have feelings for Russia, do you?" Her voice is playful.

"No. I don't." Natalya's face is glacial. She is still for a moment, offering the hope that she will stay and the conversation will ease back into a comfortable silence, but then she heaves herself out of the bath and stands. Water trickles down her body and drips from her nose, fingers, hair and breasts, falling into the bath, a brief spring time drizzle, creating small, temporary disturbances in the water.

"Natalaya," the Hungarian sighs, watching as the other steps out of the bath and begins drying herself with a towel, wrapping it round her body afterwards. "Come on. I love you. You don't really think...?"

Erzśebet stands. She feels obliged. She lets the bath drain and stands behind Natalya, knotting her arms around her slim waist and pressing her chin to her shoulder. The water from her body seeps uninvited into the towel. Her hair drips onto the bathroom floor.

"You're friendly with him." Natalya pokes her elbow into Erzśebet's body and walks to get a hair brush. She brushes her hair in an efficient manner, looking into the mirror as she does. "Everybody gossips about your relationship with him."

"So?" Before a reply can be made, Erzśebet walks to Natalya again and kisses her cheek, smiling warmly to her. "You're my princess. Since when did you care about what others said?"

The endearment coaxes Natalya's attention. She puts the hairbrush down, looks to Erzśebet, and smoothly captures her hand in her own. Their fingers lock easily - they mould to each other, and the lines of their separate skin blur as the crescent spaces between their fingers meet.

"I don't." Natalya lingers momentarily. She touches Erzśebet's jaw, guiding it in the right direction, and makes sure they are looking at each other. She always carries a certain intensity with her, and the atmosphere is different now. The light they had basked in is now a dimmer glow. The sound of the bath tub draining is a gurgle in the background. "I want you to marry me."

* * *

Erzśebet is stood in Natalya's kitchen, chopping vegetables on a white, plastic board on the counter. She doesn't like Natalya's kitchen. There's no pride in it. No warmth. It meets the simple needs of its owner, to feed, and does that alone. There is always a bag of potatoes in the cupboard. There is usually a cabbage or two. The meat in the fridge is often pork, the bread is always rye, and there is quite often a pack of cigarettes lying around somewhere, on the counter or the table, along with a mug that Natalya may have forgotten to move - the remains of herbal tea or the more traditional kvas stain the inside. It is the cigarettes that bother Erzśebet the most, but she has never liked Natalya's kitchen.

"Are you afraid of commitment?"

"No, Nat. For the hundredth time."

The hundredth time? Natalya isn't convinced by this figure. She is sat at the kitchen table peeling potatoes expertly with a small knife, letting the skins fall onto the newspaper she has laid out, and then putting each potato aside in a bowl. Her eyes are on Erzśebet as she peels.

"How can you marry him and not me?"

"You know it doesn't work like that. I didn't marry him for romance. Even through choice. It was all politics, Natalya; you know how things work."

Why is she taking things so personally?

"You don't seem to want to marry me."

Erzśebet looks over her shoulder, the knife she holds resting against the carrot she is chopping. She looks back and slices through the raw vegetable. "It's not a question of whether I want to marry you or not, is it? I just can't. I love you." She looks down at what she has chopped and then smiles a little. She can already envision the hard vegetables softening, becoming more vibrant as they cook, warming the kitchen with their aroma. She will change this kitchen and make if something appealing and welcoming. "This stew will be really nice. I always like feeding you up."

Natalya is quiet for a moment. The stew does not matter to her at all. "Would you marry me if you could?"

"Yes." Erzśebet says this for the sake of convenience. She is concentrated on making a tasty meal for them to share and wants Natalya off of this topic. This tedious, repetitive, unsolvable topic. They cannot marry, so they will not marry.

"Would you love me until I died?"

"Natalya, it's unlikely you'll die."

"I feel like I'm going to die. I sense it. Would you love me until then?"

"Of course," Erzśebet says, leaving the vegetables to get some stock (she will point out numerous times that the stock is home made). She stops before Natalya and cannot help but laugh gently. "You think too much, Nat. Stop thinking and just peel those potatoes." Before she goes, she kisses her girlfriend's brow.

The Hungarian then turns her back and finds the stock in the fridge, leaving Natalya to peel the potatoes. Erzśebet specifically told her not to think, but she can't help it.

For years now, Natalya has been preparing for her death. She isn't sure exactly why. It is an instinct as innate as breathing - or it is now. She looks outside the window of her apartment and observes the closing rituals of the day. The sky is unbearably dark, without the faintest glint of star, or the visible promise of the moon. In this sort of darkness, people are probably avoiding alley ways. They are shivering as they walk home, reminded of the emptiness of the evening and the uncertainty of what goes on under such hopeless, empty skies. These people are distracted by, and eager to enter, their homes, with each lamp turned on and the TV playing.

It is in this state of fixated observation that Natalya accidentally cuts herself.

She inhales with a hiss, her sets of teeth lightly pressing together. On her palm, the oval bottom left beneath her thumb, there is a thin slit. It reddens quickly; the vivid scarlet of human life. Tear like, tiny droplets of blood dribble from the cut.

"Nat?" Erzśebet turns and notices Natalya staring at her palm. Then she notices the blood. "Oh, you cut yourself! Does it hurt? I can get you a bandage, if that'll make you feel better. It will stop the bleeding, at least."

Natalya glances upwards, shakes her head, and stands. "It's fine. Keep cooking." She goes to the sink and holds her palm beneath the water, washing away the blood and then holding a towel to the cut.

"Don't you want a bandage?"

"No, this will do for now." Natalya smiles slightly at Erzśebet. "Thanks for offering though."

* * *

Paris, France. In the springtime especially, it is the perfect place for lovers. Strolling along the glimmering Seine, hand in hand, bodies warmed by the sun. The romance of such areas as Montmartre - watched over by the grand Basilica of Sacre-Couer, and frequented by quaint, bohemian seeming artists. The fashionable cafés, the rolling, expressive language, the cultured art galleries... The world famous city of love had earned its title.

Today, this city would also host a world meeting. The topics to be discussed were not so romantic. Immigration. Pollution. Ageing populations, resources, international relations.

It was hard for lovers to imagine that such things went on in this city. As they explored the inner depths of one another, became familiar with the inner reaches of the heart, the personality of the body and the nuances of its preferences, the world continued; the components of the economy compete fiercely as they did everyday; a marriage dissolves after a misleading affair that had always been fuelled by quixotism; another person succumbs to the murky depths of mortality with a list of unspoken regrets.

World meetings are meant to be objective. Professional. There are meant to be no personal feelings. But there are unresolved and unspoken resentments that furrow the brows and heighten tensions. There are loyal alliances that do not officially exist. There are tactics and favourites, factions, hostilities, prejudices. Such feelings taint the air and create a feeling of heaviness, a pall that hangs above the meeting table but is verbally ignored.

Although they are sharing a hotel room, Natalya and Erzśebet leave at different times. Natalya wakes early and is gone before her lover is even out of bed. At the meeting, she sits with her so called brother and sister.

Erzśebet, on the other hand, wakes later. On this day, she happens to spot Roderich nearby as she is about the enter the building. She waits for him. He is walking leisurely, and only nods when he realises that his former wife has paused on his behalf.

"Good morning, Roderich," she says. Without the watchful gaze of Natalya, she leans and kisses his cheek.

"Good morning, Erzśebet."

He pronounces her name more naturally than Natalya can, and they walk in together. When they enter the meeting room, Erzśebet is muting her smile. They take seats next to each other.

In the allotted break, Erzśebet and Roderich talk, with Erzśebet leading the conversation and laughing often. There is an obvious comfort between the pair. Even on Roderich's face there is a slight, and an incidentally sardonic, smile. At one point, he laughs. He is lured into the conversation and eases into it, due to the familiar and comely charm of the woman before him.

His eyes catch on her face as she talks, and he feels that neither of them have changed much at all.

It is in the afternoon when Natalya and Erzśebet reunite. They are walking to find a café, to relax after the meeting. That has been decided without any word from Natalya.

"Tough meeting, huh? I wish things were simpler. Don't you?" Erzśebet glances to Natalya with a smile. She takes her hand easily.

Natalya makes a vague sound from her throat to respond. She doesn't look at her companion. She pretends she is searching for an inexpensive café.

"And what do you want to eat? I know you don't care for food, but maybe you feel like something in particular today. On warm days like this, I always feel like pancakes. With nuts and chocolate sauce! Crêpes. We could share some crêpes, if you'd like. That could be kinda romantic," Erzśebet says with a small laugh, tapping Natalya's body with their linked hands.

Natalya is silent. She removes her fingers and brushes Erzśebet's hand away. "Don't talk about romance. I saw you today."

"You see me most days, Nat."

"I saw you talking with Austria. Laughing, and him laughing, making eyes at each other. Don't talk to me about romance."

For a moment, they are both quiet. But then Erzśebet shakes her head, looking aside. She tries to be patient.

"Natalya, that just isn't fair. We're just friends. You don't need to be threatened by that, Nat, I don't-"

"What about him?" Natalya demands. There is a certain pain in her eyes. Her features are severe and solemn. "What do you know about what he thinks?"

"Natalya, it doesn't matter. I love you."

"He got to marry you."

Erzśebet cannot help but groan, her eyes darting heavenwards as if searching for a divine answer. She makes a conclusive swipe with her hands.

"Right, Natalya," she says. With a touch of irritation, she kisses the Belarusian's cheek. "I'm going to get something to eat, and I suppose you don't want to come. But I'll see you later and I hope you have a lovely day."

They part. Natalya stalks through the foreign streets begrudgingly, feeling as if she has somehow lost. It is in the evening that they are reunited. Erzśebet is quick to notice that Natalya is tinged with smoke.

Erzśebet has tried to nurture a conversation. She has suggested dinner, she has suggested television viewing, she has asked general, open questions. She waits.

"I love you and I wish that nobody else did. I wish he hadn't got to marry you because I hate him and I wish I could marry you. I want to marry and I only want to marry you."

Natalya is sat on the bed. Firstly, as she spoke, she eyed the bed sheets. Then she glanced to Erzśebet, her would be bride, and met her eyes without reluctance. She is earnest. She is sure she hates the man she knows simply as Austria, because that sting of jealousy he strikes in her feels too thrilling to be anything other than hate. She is sure that she will never love anyone but Erzśebet. It is convenient to forget that for years she had said the same about Ivan.

"You don't need to hate him, Natalya. He wouldn't have chosen a marriage if he hadn't needed it, for himself." Erzśebet had been pretending that she needed to arrange and sort their clothes, but now she looked to Natalya. She came to her, crawled on the bed and sat by her. She rested her brow against Natalya's and placed her hand atop hers lightly. "I love you. You shouldn't be so fixated with marriage, Nat. It doesn't change things like you think it does. Time does that - not the marriage."

"You'll stay with me?"

"I'll stay with you."

Natalya cannot help herself: "But I want to be yours officially. You to be mine officially."

She strokes Erzśebet's hair, holding her head, and then slowly moves her own head so that she can kiss her love. Their lips brush, purse to meet. Erzśebet looks up at Natalya with tender eyes, and a soft face.

"Being official doesn't matter, Nat, I promise. I'm yours."

Natalya brushes Erzśebet's hair behind her ears. They both rise and straighten, mirroring and meeting each other; Erzśebet's arms coil around Natalya, and Natalya's hands grip her waist. Their lips meet more firmly. They close their eyes. Erzśebet can be heard sighing, relieved that Natalya seems to understand.

"Mine."

"Yours."


End file.
